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Early in 2011, Rusty Frank told me about her plans to go to China, to pay a visit to Jiefang Chen, a tap dancer who was using a number of our “Tapping With The Masters” instructional DVDs to teach his students. Rusty wrote about her visit in the ITA newsletter after her return, in April, 2011.

As I was teaching on a number of the DVDs, Jiefang asked Rusty to put him in touch with me. I found him to be, as Rusty has described him, “China’s tap tiger.” I’ve never met anyone more passionate about tap dancing or more determined to promote it than this robust and energetic septogenerian. Over the course of nearly three months and 120 emails, we discussed his concerns about the development of tap in China. Here are some of the main issues he sought to articulate: